What’s up with the Ohio St yard-Buffalo

The yard is empty. The only items still in the yard are the old snow plows, jet engine switch blower and the Conrail caboose. No locomotive, grain cars or employees. There are a couple of cars in the ADM shed but I don’t think they’ve been moved. Can’t tell what Gen Mill has on their property.

The news has been randomly reporting wheat shortages along with dead wheat crops out west due to heat wave and drought. Are we seeing the effects?

I went and bought more Cheerios to stock up.

From what I've heard, it sounds like CSX is closing Ohio St Yard and moving the local based there to either Frontier or Niagara Falls. Yard tracks will be removed.... but the tracks to ADM and General Mills will remain in place to service those customers.

A few years ago, they ripped up the tracks that lead into the sand pile along Rt5. Bummer that this section is going to get pulled up.

While boating the other day and going up the Buffalo River, I noticed that the ADM Standard elevator had more than a few rail cars on the property. I would assume that this will remain the same. So, all the cars that use to be at Ohio St....were they all for General Mills? Were they classifying for others besides GM?

The Ohio St local also works ADM and the silos next to Ohio St on the other side of the river. The yard was definitely used for all of that traffic (plus General Mills). As I recall, the yard was used occasionally for storing excess cars, too. It's sad to see how much traffic has fallen on both Class 1s in the Buffalo area over the past 4 years or so.

Here are several pics while conducting my yard inspection.

I believe they have already started ripping up the rails. Some equipment is on the property.


This little guy is sitting on the west side of Ohio St. they already ripped up a siding. I assume the other two are next. I’m guessing the track in the background will be left alone to feed ADM and GM.


A larger view on an empty yard.


To my surprise CN comes off the mainline. Initially it looked like he was going to enter the yard but turned left circumnavigating the water tower and heads towards/near Hanna Furnace.

SST wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 9:22 pm To my surprise CN comes off the mainline. Initially it looked like he was going to enter the yard but turned left circumnavigating the water tower and heads towards/near Hanna Furnace.

The track the CN job is heading down is the Lehigh Westbound. That's the 'back door' to Seneca yard at Tifft St.. The switch is on the Beach Lead, which runs from CP-Draw across CP-2 (the diamond, old BC tower) and into Ohio Street Yard.

The 'sand pile' yard was BCRy's Beach yard. Back in 1989/90 the Burrows Lot Yard had two tracks full of cabeese awaiting disposal, and we were still going across Fuhrmann to spot tank cars at the pier with YAOS11.

As predicted in the picture above, they are ripping up the track along side Ohio St. The single track next to this is still in place. Here are some pics:

At the foot of the Ohio St bridge looking south.


Same position looking north:


Switches yet to be removed. Behind the specialty wood company. With the line severed and the switch without a lock, I thru the handle. The reflecting markers (what do you call them) rotated but the rails didn’t move. The bar connecting the rails was cut.


A ship at the sand pile unloading sand in the background:


Looking south near the fire station on Ganson st. Looking at the switch, to the left, track is being removed and keeping to the right is your “feeder track” to and from ADM/GM (Behind me).


There is no evidence of track removal from the yard itself. The old snowplows and the Child St yard have not been severed……yet.

The yard shown removed in yesterday's post is not Ohio St yard. It's the Turnpike Yard, which was a BCRR yard pre-Conrail. Ohio St yard is the one pictured at the top of the 7/29 post, and it has already lost quite a few tracks as shown in your pics. Only three of the BC-side tracks remain on the north side in the distance and most of the LV-side tracks remain on the south side. That yard was divided roughly right up the middle between LV and BC. I don't know when it was downsized but it was intact 30 years ago and Google Maps satellite view still shows it intact, so relatively recently. The weeds would indicate it was probably in the past two or three years.

The 'reflecting markers' are called switch targets.

Just caught up to this thread - interesting but surprisingly not unexpected as life goes on. When i worked at Fred Koch Malting ( formally Perot and American Malting) on Childs Street late 80's - early 90's ( before parent company Genesee Brewing shut it down) ConAgra was going great guns and we both used Burrows yard.

I haven't been back since then but looking now on overhead I see doesn't take long for nature to take over the abandoned yard.
We also used to bring barley in by rail to ADM for storage ( Pillsbury back in the day) then truck over to our malthouse. Kind of a disjointed transfer method.

Can any of the guys on here confirm that customers to Gene McCarthys bar on Hamburg Street occasionally parked on the tracks outside thinking ' Naw theses. tracks aren't used anymore'. only to get a blast from switcher?
Mark

The yard in front of McCarthys bar is ripped up. The only traffic directly along side of the bar is for ADM traffic. I haven't visited the area in a while, but there was at least 1 train down Catherines St for Sweet -Kleen. There use to be traffic for Linde on Catherine St but I think they discontinued that several years ago.

The red caboose that use to sit in Angola, NY is now sitting at the Child St yard near all the elevators. Been repainted and looks nice. Can't remember if they but a logo on it or not. I also noticed that almost all of the rails that lead from the yard into the elevators have but severed. No more service by rail.

I used to attend Buffalo Slow Roll from maybe 2016-2018. One time a ride started/ended at Gene McCarthy's, and I was into the tracks that flooded that intersection. Especially this building that was newly renovated into several businesses, and the steel-3D-triangular-end-of-siding-stopper was left in the ground, and the siding along that builing was no more, as the patio for the restaurant there was in the sidings place.

I knew there were rails in front of this long building that had mural work on it on the south side of a set of tracks, the north side road being Republic. I am including one of the photos here I took.

I went to Google Street View after the mention of the track removal, and it's dated June 2022 and the tracks are gone. But if you tool around a bit, some intersections have scenes of 2007 - there's a track that crosses Louisanna Street and there's those Red/Green traffic signals telling the train crew to stop/go. I know that track was gone in May 2017. If you look on the Ohio street that view is current and the park's sidewalk has tracks painted on them as it seems to be the path as it still shows on google maps.

The grey painted building may be gone? The Community Steel building is there

Since the opening of the skyway and closure of the Ohio St bridge I haven’t been in that area for awhile. But, I’m pretty sure that building is still standing. A lot can happen in 2 years so maybe not. Add that to the list of places to check.

I finally got down to the Louisiana st track mentioned above. Some track exist but most are gone. Here are a couple of pics.

This photo is at Hamburg St and Republic St. McCarthy’s is behind me and to the right. The track on the far left goes to ADM Standard silos. The remaining track are for the yard. There is nothing left of the yard except ballast. The rest is tall weeds.


This photo is from Louisiana St looking opposite with McCarthy’s off in the distance. The building/warehouse mentioned above is gone. Only the foundation remains. I thought that would survive.


Same position on Louisiana St looking westerly. Rails are still in the ground. Hope they leave them alone.


After my hard work I stopped at Swannies House.


Cheers

BTW-I did check out Katherine St. no changes except track maintenance with tie replacement.

Bit off topic but getting back to the Burrows Yard remnants off Child’s Street
What is this circle in the middle of the yard? Turntable or crop circle ?

I admit I've never seen this before. But I would guess that this is some kind of Artsy Craftsy thing. The weather is improving over the next two days...maybe I'll venture down and take a look. With the boat out of the water, I'm not down there anymore.